Nurse Jess

by Joyce Dingwell

  “That’s all right,” said Margaret offhandedly. “I asked him myself.”

  “You did!” Jessa looked a little taken aback. There was no reason for her to look like that, she knew, but Margaret at the time the foursome had been mentioned had been quite astounded at the idea of summoning the nerve to invite the great Prof. Gink.

  Well, a lot must have happened since then, Jessa thought a little blankly. From somewhere or other Margaret must have found the necessary courage... or did such things come naturally—when one was in love?

  “As it eventuated,” continued Margaret, “it was very convenient for him. The Biggabilla infant welfare hall did not open when it intended. In fact, it will open when we are up there, so it will suit the Professor quite well.”

  “That’s nice,” murmured Jessa.

  The examination came and went. In due course their names were posted on the notice-board as successful candidates. Again Jessa’s read first.

  A letter had come to Jessa from Margaret’s parents, assuring her that they were looking forward to her visit.

  “They wrote to Barry and the Professor as well,” beamed Meg.

  “Won’t we be a houseful?”

  “Country places are incapable of being filled,” Margaret assured her. “When we run out of rooms there’s always a barn.”

  It was arranged that the girls go ahead and the men follow after. They took a local air-line, the same air-line that had borne Jessa and the Professor to the Winthrop quads, only this time they went north-west instead of south-west, and the country was very different.

  —Or was it so different, wondered Jessa, when they alighted at the Biggabilla strip. To the left was the tiny town, several Shops, two hotels, and the inevitable peppercorns.

  She remembered Professor Gink telling her that he had grown up in a peppercorn village. She remembered how she had wanted to ask him what had happened in those years between a country boy and an eminent scholar.

  Margaret’s father met them in the car.

  “I don’t know what you’ll think of Biggabilla after Crescent Island,” he chuckled. “I don’t know your island, Miss Barlow, but Mother and I once went to Norfolk Island, and it was a very different background from this.” He chuckled again.

  Jessa looked with interest as the car made short distance of the miles between Billaroo, Margaret’s home, and the Biggabilla strip.

  It was certainly different country, as Mr. South had said. At Crescent, the keynote was lush fertility. That was only to be expected on a sub-tropical isle. But here the country was bare, almost barren, and there were only occasional knottings of kurrajong trees.

  Mr. South, taking his eye off the long dusty road for a moment, explained that the barrenness was only illusion, however.

  “It’s not as sterile as you’re thinking, Miss Barlow. Up here is good grazing country, indeed one of the best. There’s food on that billiard table”—he waved his arm to the flats—“and take my word.”

  “Is only grazing carried on?”

  “We self-support,” said Mr. South, “as far as our fourteen-inch rainfall will allow. And then, of course, there are our opals.”

  “Oh, yes,” smiled Jessa, “the opals. Ever mine for any, Mr. South—or is ‘mine’ the wrong word?”

  “Out here we prefer win,’” grinned Margaret’s father. “We always speak of, say, Jones or Smith ‘winning’ some opal from the basalt or shale.”

  ‘But he doesn’t, does he?” asked Jessa, wide-eyed.

  “No, he usually has to go down about forty feet. If he’s lucky he might strike it on different levels and in vertical joint cracks. Mostly the opals appear in thin veinlets and nodular masses. It’s mostly hard yakka, and very discouraging. ‘Grey Billy,’ which is a tough capping of quartzite breaks many hearts, and then, of course, there is potch.”

  “What is potch?”

  “Worthless opal,” shrugged Margaret’s father. “Look, Miss Barlow, here is Billatoo now.”

  Jessa smiled on the pleasant rambling country house, its garden, in spite of the rainfall, more overgrown than trim, its pink-washed walls flanked by plantations of hardy shrubs flourishing at their will.

  Mrs. South was on the wide verandah waiting for them. There was a smell of cooking in the air, homely and inviting.

  It was two days before the men were to arrive. Margaret borrowed the car and drove Jessa to several of the opal fields. Jessa learned that opal is silica... that it takes many millions of years to make.

  “And as many to find,” sighed a discouraged prospector who leaned against his windlass and filled his pipe as he talked to the girls.

  “I may as well noodle for it,” he sighed.

  “What’s noodling?”

  “Just walking around, miss, and keeping your eyes skinned. Sometimes you can be luckier than the man who puts in a lot of hard work.”

  Jessa wondered why they kept on, these patient men, digging, examining, trying to beat Grey Billy, finding a vein only to discover it was potch. But when she saw some of the opals that had been mined she thought differently.

  Their loveliness was something the diamond or ruby or emerald would never touch, for they were all colours in one. Fiery red, orange, yellow, blue and green, in iridescent ever-changing hues as the stone turned in the light, fascinated her.

  When they went into Biggabilla to pick up the men she made her way first to the Shire Hall to see replicas of some of the champions that had been “won” as Mr. South put it... The Red Admiral, The Golden Princess, Rainbow Flash.

  She was standing there intrigued when someone came and stood beside her.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Barlow, you look in a trance.” Jessa started. She had been gazing at a white opal. She believed she almost preferred these... they were so beautiful and delicate... and she had forgotten all about the plane and the cargo it would bring.

  Professor Gink was looking where she was looking, “odd,” he remarked. “You never appeared the kind of girl to me to go overboard for a jewel.”

  “You can scarcely say overboard at Biggabilla,” she laughed. “There’s not a river in sight and only a yearly rainfall of fourteen inches, I’m told. As for succumbing to opals—well, I’m afraid that’s just what I’ve done.”

  “Yes,” he nodded, “and I don’t blame you. There’s something warm about them, isn’t there? Certainly I should say they are your gem.”

  “Because they’re warm,” deduced Jessa ruefully, touching her bright red hair.

  “And why not?” he came back. “Isn’t warmth a very good thing?”

  “Not here in summer,” she retorted, “if the temperature keeps on keeping pace to the season. We’re barely out of spring, remember, and it’s certainly very warm.”

  “I suppose being a prem-man,” he grinned, “I have a soft spot for warmth. If you can tear yourself away from your jewels, Miss Barlow, Margaret has suggested we inspect the infant welfare hall I’m to open before we go out to Billaroo.” Jessa said rather flatly, “They are not my jewels, nor ever will be.” She had noticed his use of Margaret, not even Nurse Margaret, and his careful Miss Barlow to her. “Nor anything like them,” she concluded with a ghost of a sigh. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Professor Gink.

  The hall was small and colourful. The Bush Society who had financed and built it had done a good job. They walked around the buttercup-tinted room and admired the many cupboards painted alternately gentle grey and soft blue.

  “It is a restful room,” commended Meg.

  They were out at Billaroo for afternoon tea. They sat a long time over the cups while Mr. and Mrs. South got to know their visitors.

  “How long can you men give us?” asked Margaret’s father.

  The Professor said, “Two days only, unfortunately, one to see the opal fields, one to open the hall.”

  Barry said, “Three for me, all on the opal fields. I won’t have time to mine, but I will have time to noodle. I’ve named my opal in advance. I’m calling it Matt
hew’s Dream.”

  “And why that?” laughed Margaret’s mother.

  “It’s my dream, really, but I can’t help feeling old Matthew Flinders dreams it as well, for all that he’s only an engine, a cockpit, a structure and wings.”

  “Matthew Flinders is Barry’s plane,” explained Margaret to her parents. “He wants to return it to the island run much more elaborately equipped than it was before.”

  “And is it returning?” asked Mr. South keenly.

  Barry looked a little disconcerted. “It was only a hunch, sir,” he admitted a little embarrassed.

  Mr. South cheered him immediately.

  “I know just how you feel, son. All old prospectors have felt it. That queer, priceless, subconscious urge whispering at your shoulder that it’s coming, coming—is that it?”

  “Why, yes, sir,” said Barry eagerly, “I’ve got exactly that sensation with Matthew. What’s more I’ve also got it as regards my opal. I’m going to win one, I’m sure.”

  And he did win one.

  They spent the entire first day on an old field recommended as a “possible” by Mr. South.

  Jessa found a quantity of wood opal which, apart from malting small ornaments, was quite valueless, and Margaret and the Professor found only potch. But Barry found his opal, quite large, quite lovely, though, according to him, unfortunately white.

  “But why unfortunately?” protested Jessa, gazing entranced at the glimpse of milky jewel in its rough casing with its pin-fire of colours.

  “Less valuable,” moaned Ba.

  They took it back to Billaroo for Mr. South’s opinion. He was something of an authority on opals. He and Ba and the Professor closeted themselves in the study. When they came out a long while after Barry had a radiant look.

  “Well, that’s done it,” he said happily. “Matthew Flinders is all set for its refurbishing.”

  “Was it valuable after all?” gasped Jessa.

  “To the right market, yes.”

  “But where is the market?”

  “Right here in this room, my child. The Professor, to be precise. He bought it.”

  “Bought it? But “

  The Professor said quietly but distinctly, “I bought it to have it made into a ring.”

  He looked across at Meg.

  “So all I need now,” beamed Barry, “is for Lopi to erupt and to send those tourists hot-footing it back to Sydney. Not a big ‘quake, just a little gentle nudging that will kill the travel trade for all time and put copra and conchi back where they belong.”

  They all laughed.

  The next day was the opening ceremony of the infant welfare hall. The Billaroo folk travelled in to the centre in two cars. Jessa went with the Souths in their family model,

  Margaret sat between Professor Gink and Barry in the jeep.

  They arrived together, the jeep travellers dustier than the Souths and Jessa. Jessa watched Margaret dusting and brushing the Professor. “You can’t face a crowd of people looking like a tramp,” she protested.

  “A crowd?”

  “You’re spoiled,” Meg laughed. “Because you’re used to addressing large assemblies in big cities you look askance at addressing fifty people in little Biggabilla.”

  The Professor said sincerely, “Never, my dear.”

  As she took her place in the hall Jessa thought a lot about that sincere look. Had it been because the Professor estimated any audience, big or small, sincerely... or had it been because he was looking at Meg?

  The nurse-in-charge who had been appointed to Biggabilla was introduced, and the first babies, eight of them, were weighed by the nurse and examined by Professor Gink. Only three of them were white, the other five came from the aboriginal camp. Margaret whispered to Jessa that there were comparatively large numbers of aborigines in this corner of New South Wales. “I only hope Biggabilla’s complement keep on attending the clinic,” she said.

  The Professor caught the evening plane back to Sydney. The three young people rode out to the strip to see him off.

  Although Margaret had dusted and burnished him for the ceremony, he looked shaggy already.

  “What a man,” smiled Meg, and began dusting and brushing again.

  “Is your opal aboard?” asked Barry.

  “In this pocket,” assured the Professor. “This pocket from which Margaret is greedily reclaiming Biggabilla dust.”

  Margaret looked at him with shining eyes. Her last words were so low that they must have been intended only for the Professor—but Jessa caught them as well.

  “I am so happy,” she said.

  The plane’s engine turned over, the craft took off.

  “He’s waving,” called Barry, waving back. Meg waved, too.

  But Jessa did not wave. Perhaps it was because she couldn’t see anything. There was dust in her eyes, Biggabilla was very dusty, and everything seemed a blur. They went back to Billaroo, and spent the next day horse-riding.

  Ba went that night, and for the rest of the time Margaret and Jessa rode, chattered and slept. The chatter was mainly baby chatter. Never once did they come down to personal issues. Jessa had the feeling that Margaret was steering clear of the subject, and she had never been more anxious to avoid it herself. But once alone she could not escape her thoughts.

  Again she heard Barry announce of his opal, “He bought it”—meaning the Professor, and the Professor saying quietly but with meaning, “I bought it to have it made into a ring.”

  She remembered Margaret’s eyes as she had dusted the Professor, and how they had shone. She heard again that low, “I am so happy,” of Meg’s.

  Happy for what?

  Happy because of a milky-white opal with a pin-fire of colours to be made into a ring?

  CHAPTER XVIII

  WHEN Jessa got back to Belinda she was glad to find that she was still on Days. Days, as everyone knew, was more exhausting than Nights, and just now all Jessa wanted was to work so hard that when her duties were over all she wanted to do was to creep into bed.

  She was relieved, also, though certainly with shame, that Margaret had not only been transferred to another ward but to different duty hours. An earlier start, as Margaret had been allotted, meant earlier morning break, earlier lunch, earlier tea, a different schedule throughout. It meant therefore that Jessa saw little of her friend, and that was where Jessa’s shame crept in ... she simply did not want to see Meg, not just now.

  She knew she would get over all this. She knew she would have to. The Professor had made his choice, and it was the choice she, too, had wanted for him, not guessing that if it ever eventuated her heart would be torn apart like this.

  Dear, dear Professor... Every time she came down the long corridor she looked for his lanky shadow on the wall, recalled the first time she had pushed him over and damaged his spectacles, remembered every awkward, clumsy, growing lovable thing about him.

  She tried to find balm in little Barry, growing fatter and rosier day by day, and in truth she was never happier than when she was allowed to wheel the foundling out, play with him on the lawn, dress him in some little-boy clothes she had bought from an exclusive baby salon.

  Then Sister Helen broke the news that Barry would be going shortly.

  “Is he being adopted?”

  “No, dear”—Sister Helen was perceptive, she had guessed Jessa’s love for the little man—”but he’s long past prematurity now, so it’s not our place to keep him.”

  “Will the Child Welfare step in?”

  “Yes, Nurse Jess.” Sister Helen paused. “It’s only reasonable, you know,” she said gently. “This small fellow doesn’t need our care any more, but some other small fellow might.” Jessa could follow that logic, but it didn’t help her. “Oh, Perfesser,” she whispered to the little boy, reverting to her first foolish name for him. “I just can’t let you go.”

  There was nothing to be gained by flying in the face of what must be, however, so Jessa turned resolutely to work so that even the perfectio
nist Nurse Gwen could find no fault in any task performed by Nurse Jess.

  One by one the prems signed out, or at least their nervous parents did, and one by one new littlies arrived.

  Deb. Number One departed in a dress fit for a princess. Even her bonnet fitted perfectly, so that Sister Helen was not obliged to dip once more into her bag of knitteds. This was not because Deb’s head was bigger than the other prems’ heads, but because Mrs. Peters had an eye for dress and was determined that her daughter follow in her footsteps, even though it would be a long while before she could even crawl. Brains Trust had to be hatted, however. His intelligent-looking, rather bewildered parents stood forlornly by as the bonnet Brains Trust’s mother had brought in slipped down to his chin.

  “He’s very little,” faltered Mr. Willard apprehensively.

  “He’s quite large,” beamed Jessa. “Rising five and a quarter pounds.”

  “I’m a graduate,” confided Mrs. Willard pathetically. “I know all about Greek mythology, but nothing about babies. I’m scared to death, Nurse.”

  “Nonsense,” laughed Jessa, then, not caring if Nurse Gwen heard, “Babies are tough hombres, and this one is a piece of cake.”